Saturday

Jul 21, 2018 at 12:01 AMJul 21, 2018 at 8:56 PM

The second Thursday of July, bright yellow “AHA!” flags waved over 60 downtown venues under perfect skies for the milestone 20th Anniversary AHA! Night. Fittingly, it was a night headlined by youth and economic development... as perhaps 3,000 city residents and visitors paid tribute to New Bedford’s success in building a city revitalization partnership that has earned “AHA!” it’s exclamation mark.

The “Kids Rule” theme of the 20th Anniversary AHA! — for those of us who began attending the “urban pioneer” gallery nights a generation ago — seemed the passing of a torch.

A stage on the lawn of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park reverberated with the strains of Jimi Hendrix as the youth phenoms of “Morrissey Boulevard” brought fans young and old... and from far and wide to this outdoor venue. Onetime city economic development chief Matt Morrissey and his wife Kristen beam at this young band of brothers and sister who discovered rhythm and soul in the many rooms of their historic West End Victorian.

As a hundred or so fans listened, and dozens more filled the sidewalks song-to-song, a friend reminded me that young musicians Zan, Zoe, Henri and Wilson Morrissey had grown up in a city that, for them, had always had AHA! Nights. These talented young artists — like every child of our city — had been raised with the expectation that there would be monthly music ringing from the public square on a summer’s night. Certainly one day, it would be their turn to play!

Similarly, the youth attending “Kid’s Rule” had never known a city without the Whaling National Historical Park, the Zeiterion Theater, the New Bedford Art Museum, the UMass Dartmouth College of Visual and Performing Arts at the Star Store, and a vibrant, hip art culture downtown.

It was a profoundly different city from the one I had come to 30 years ago... although the “bones” of Art, History and Architecture had been there since the city’s first heyday in the 1840s.

I sat in a folding chair, next to a woman who had come from Westport to hear what she dubbed her favorite local band.

Twenty years ago, when the local community congress, an ambitious effort of small “d” democracy, envisioned this sort of downtown event, empty storefronts stood like missing teeth in the city’s smile, and the word in the suburbs and surrounding towns was that you didn’t go into New Bedford... a downtown tarnished by grime and crime.

A few blocks down the cobblestones toward the waterfront, Bristol County Savings Bank (a long-time AHA! funder) was holding an open house for its new branch in the Candleworks Building. Gallerist Denn Santoro was giving a tour of the bank’s new curated collection of local artists to a couple who had come from Acushnet to see the art. One of the featured artists, Barbara Healy, dabbed at a palette of oils, as she painted the cupola of the New Bedford Whaling Museum in the softening evening light through a window. Outside, Trevor Kellum and Friends played a jazzy “Something in the way she moves me....”

In the frame of “AHA!” it seems most fitting that Downtown New Bedford’s newest “gallery” is a place of commerce and finance.

Over the past couple of years, BayCoast Bank and First Citizen’s Federal Credit Union have also made very significant investments in a downtown that a generation ago suffered from divestment, and flight to the suburbs.

A few blocks away, Fiber Optic Center founder Neal Weiss, a pioneer in every sense of the word, hosted the exquisite notes of Peter Kontrimas on bass, Jim Robitaille on guitar, and Chris Poudrier on drums on his loading dock... a tiny industrial venue that once saw the AHA! debut of rocker Grace Potter.

In the lengthening shadow of the Star Store, a young mother from Fall River had brought her 4-year-old son to his first AHA! night. The boy grasped the lowest reaches of the towering Carabiner’s climbing wall in awe and determination.

And as the night drew to a close, Dena Haden, program manager of the new Union Street Co-Creative Center, was smoothing table size sheets of communal crayon drawings that dozens of young artists had left their individual marks upon over the course of the evening.

It is easy, on a night like this, to see in AHA! the magic of Providence’s Waterfire. These are both free summer evening celebrations that have knit whole communities with the yarn of shared narrative and experience.

But it is neither magic, nor miracle, nor simple inspiration at its core.

It is indeed the fruit of tens of thousands of hours of volunteer labor, of steadiness of funding vision from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Island Foundation and the steadfast stewardship of the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts.

AHA! might never have found its traction if local banks and businesses had not rolled up their sleeves early on with long-term funding commitments.

And AHA! might have since folded its tent without the unflagging support of our legislative delegation, led by Sen. Mark Montigny and Rep. Tony Cabral.

A succession of three thoughtful mayors have nurtured AHA!’s gifts and independence, none with more passion and commitment than Mayor Jon Mitchell, a rare gift in the sometimes parochial life of cities.

It has taken a generation, and the best efforts of dozens of visionary citizens to make AHA! the city standard that the AHA! flag represents across the SouthCoast today.

As the city has made AHA! Nights a beacon of revitalization throughout the commonwealth, so too has this unlikely little civic effort brought to the fore the many treasures of our city, not the least of which is a community spirit that leans optimistically toward the future.

Nelson Hockert-Lotz has represented small business on the AHA! Steering Committee for more than a decade, and currently serves as treasurer.

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